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Common Dreams reports
[On November 22, U.S. District Judge Amos Mazzant of Texas] halted an Obama administration rule that would have expanded overtime pay for millions of workers, a decision that was slammed by employees' rights advocates.
The U.S. Department of Labor rule, which was set to go into effect on December 1, would have made overtime pay available to full-time salaried employees making up to $47,476 a year. It was expected to touch every nearly every sector [1] in the U.S. economy. The threshold for overtime pay was previously set at $23,660, and had been updated once in 40 years--meaning any full-time employees who earned more than $23,600 were not eligible for time-and-a-half when they worked more than 40 hours a week.
[...] Workers' rights advocates reacted with dismay and outrage. David Levine, CEO and co-founder of the American Sustainable Business Council, mourned the ruling, saying the opponents were "operating from short-sighted, out-moded thinking".
"The employees who will be hurt the most and the economies that will suffer the most are in the American heartland, where wages are already low", Levine said. "When employers pay a fair wage, they benefit from more productive, loyal, and motivated employees. That's good for a business' bottom line and for growing the middle class that our nation's economy depends on. High road businesses understand that better compensation helps build a better work culture."
[...] Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project (NELP), noted [2] that the rule would have impacted up to 12.5 million workers, citing research by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).
"The business trade associations and Republican-led states that filed the litigation in Texas opposing the rules have won today, but will not ultimately prevail in their attempt to take away a long-overdue pay raise for America's workers", she said. "Unfortunately, for the time being, workers will continue to work longer hours for less pay thanks to this obstructionist litigation."
[1][2] Content is behind scripts.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bradley13 on Monday November 28 2016, @01:22PM
The good: As always, the (supposed) intentions are pure: Pay people for the hours that they work.
The bad: This law effectively restricts the freedom for people and employers to agree to an employment contract. Specifically, full-time employees earning less thatn $47476 must be paid hourly overtime for any extra hours worked. In the cases I am familiar with, this effectively turns people who are lower-level managers back into hourly employees. Someone you want to groom for more responsibility, and who is probably proud of it, is suddenly back to punching a time-clock.
The ugly: The advocates are simply clueless. "When employers pay a fair wage, they benefit from more productive, loyal, and motivated employees." Guess what, money doesn't magically come out of a spigot. Lots of SMEs in "in the American Heartland" are operating on tight budgets. Higher labor costs mean higher prices, lost jobs, or even a bankrupt business.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 3, Funny) by bradley13 on Monday November 28 2016, @01:23PM
Meant to to add this:
Funny how, in one breath, it's "flyover country". Then the elite wants something, and it's suddently "the American Heartland".
/snark
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Thexalon on Monday November 28 2016, @03:57PM
I know what the cure for that problem would be, and I try to encourage others to do it: Stop flying!
Seriously, if you travel cross-country on the ground, all of a sudden those small towns that you've never heard of become landmarks. You can see why somebody might like living in rural Kansas or Colorado or Utah. You can also see the problems many of those places have. And you'll get a sense of how huge many of those places really are. From what I can tell, there is a class of people that rarely travels on the ground and is flying from city to city with no conception of what's in between.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @09:37PM
I can practically see Kansas from my golden tower in NYC.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday November 28 2016, @10:43PM
Take a page from Walkin' Lawton https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawton_Chiles [wikipedia.org]
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Monday November 28 2016, @02:01PM
To me, this isn't about more or less pay, this is about shaping employer behaviors.
If the extra money is so hurtful to the employer, then cut the base pay back so that the take home is the same. The law isn't dictating that contracts can't be renegotiated, quite the opposite.
Overall, I'd rather have a workforce of 125 salaried employees working an average of 40-45 hours a week, instead of a workforce of 75 salaried employees working 70+ hours a week, plus 50 people out of work (drawing unemployment benefits until they become an even bigger drain on the economy by having health and housing problems they can't pay for).
Grooming one for more responsibility while paying them less than $25,000 a year is a joke. At $25K per year, they're still living with their parents.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by VLM on Monday November 28 2016, @02:23PM
Higher labor costs mean higher prices, lost jobs, or even a bankrupt business.
It costs about $30K (or whatever value you'd like) to live, so businesses that encourage corrupt legislation to pay less than $30K just mean I'll get taxed and the money will be very inefficiently funneled to various programs.
There's this mythology that you can pay people less than it costs to live, and they'll enjoy it or get replaced and magically they'll live on nothing. The reality is paying the government so that walmart can have higher profits is incredibly inefficient way to pay for a clerks medical care, or food, for example. If the minimum wage is higher then the people paying for that clerks medical care are the store shoppers rather than unfairly charging random taxpayers.
The fair free market minimum wage without massive government intervention in "them programs" is probably about $15/hr, so that brings up the other point that its hard to get angry about government regulation when its more or less common sense. Without the existing massive .gov interference it would be about $15/hr to get people to work so its hard to be angry if the .gov says it'll be $15.
The corporations demanding they pay less to their employees so that the taxpayers can pay the difference, are lazy corporate welfare bums that we're better off without, no matter how many times they call themselves "job creators" they're just expensive corporate welfare parasites we'd be better off without.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday November 28 2016, @05:16PM
There's another pure fantasy that I think drives a lot of people's thinking: The idea that there isn't really enough to ensure that nobody is in poverty, and the life of poor and working class people is basically a life-or-death struggle to see who won't be impoverished.
That idea is total nonsense: The cost of giving every man, woman, and child in America enough to be above the federal poverty line is approximately $2.5 trillion. The US GDP is currently approximately $18.5 trillion. So that means that we're allocating ridiculous amounts of resources to things that aren't necessary for humans to survive. And the real economy (i.e. stuff and labor, rather than the money that represents them) matches this observation: We're throwing away staggering amounts of unsold goods. And we have a massive surplus of people trying to work.
In short, some Americans are poor because our political and economic system has decided that it is better for people to be in poverty than to distribute resources differently.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by keick on Monday November 28 2016, @07:21PM
I keep hearing folks like yourself beat this drum, and I did as well for a time. I've even put my own time and money into trying to help those in need in the some of the poorest counties in the Unites States (Areas around Boone, and Nada KY for example). After 4 years of spending a couple weeks a summer there building houses, repairing houses, etc. I came to a realization.
That realization was that no matter what condition they were living in, they don't realize it nor want it changed. They wont tell you that, in fact they'll tell you (and flat out expect) the exact opposite. Example: One couple didn't have running water in their house, and instead used an outhouse that drained into a local creek. We build them a detached (government rules) addition to their house, which contained a full bathroom and living area (heated and everything). They were very excited about it, and thanked us while simultaneously all but saying "it's about time someone did this for us". Kinda bummed about the whole thing, but I was off to other projects. When I came back one year later, the new addition was trashed inside and out... They were still using the outhouse, and were all up demanding we renovate their addition. We left. They didn't care for anything they owned, not matter how nice, and expected others (government, local churches, etc) to do it for them.
I'll share another experience from the same area, because I think it sums up the general sentiment nicely (and very unfortunately). We sat down with a 10-12 year old boy to chat while taking a drink break from fixing his parents roof. We asked him about school, and what not, and then someone asked him what he'd like to do when he grows up. His answer was scary and insightful; "I'm going to do what every one else does, get on Welfare and do what I want.". Upon reflection of his words, it really put my previous 4 years of experiences in that region into alignment; Nearly every male I had ever run across had never lifted a finger to help with our projects on their own houses. And it's not like they had a job, they were always there... But instead they just kind of hung around on the front porch watching, or stayed inside taking care of the TV.
So that brings me to why I'm even here commenting, which is something called the Pareto principle (or the principle of factor sparsity). Basically almost everything that is countable seems to fall into the 80-20 rule, 80% of the effect is caused by 20% of the causes. This has been shown to also apply to wealth distributions across nearly every country in the world, with 20% of the population holding 80% of the money. It isn't some great conspiracy of the rich, its just an interesting power-law distribution that seems to always apply.
20% of the carpet in your office gets 80% of the wear; 80% of your income comes from 20% of your clients; 80% of software defects is due to 20% of the code. There is nothing FAIR about it. I certainly wish all my clients contributed equally to my income, but that ain't gonna happen.
We can try to distribute the money across the poorest people, but if the Pareto Principle holds most likely it wont change a thing.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Thexalon on Monday November 28 2016, @09:59PM
So what exactly is your point? Are you suggesting that 80% of humanity should just roll over and die already? Or that who is a real contributor and who isn't can and should be determined by what sort of person your dad was?
I agree there are some lazy people and moochers out there. I know several myself. I'm not willing to condemn them to death for it, especially when the alternative is cutting back on the dick-measuring contest among mindbogglingly rich people that has absolutely zero impact to their actual livelihoods.
Also, for all you know, that 12-year-old might someday aspire to be more than what his daddy was.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Zz9zZ on Monday November 28 2016, @11:50PM
You have to be careful not to let anecdotes shape your opinions. There will always be examples of shitty human behavior, but don't become jaded unless it really is the vast majority. In this case it sounds like you helped out some pretty "bleh" type people, but I'm sure there are plenty of others who really appreciate the help.
Poverty traps are real, and communities can quickly go downhill when people don't have any hope. I would argue that the welfare mentality is the result of runaway capitalism. Wall street squeezes and cheats every dime they can, these welfare people are simply doing the same with the resources available. Perhaps if minimum wage was actually a livable rate then you'd see people going to work instead of living off welfare. Asking people to work full time and have a harder time paying the bills than if they stayed on welfare is... dumb. Basic risk/reward keeps these people where they are, and the answer is for some type of wealth normalization so that even the poorest people can afford food/shelter/entertainment as well as save some money regularly.
Without some normalization these problems will get worse. The system IS the problem, welfare and such are bandaids to try and keep society moving along but what we really need is serious surgery.
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday November 29 2016, @01:59AM
So, yes, there are a certain number of impoverished people who do nothing but expect handouts, just as there are a certain number of C-level employees who expect nothing but bonuses and raises no matter how badly they lead their division of a corporation that is losing money.
What this particular law is about isn't about handouts for the poor, quite the opposite, it's about making it more expensive for employers to work individual employees more than 40 hours a week. On the face of it, to me, this means hiring more people to do the same job instead of working the ones you've got into oblivion while leaving the rest unemployed.
If I were a Presidential candidate and I were going to "fix" unemployment, I'd move push for legislation to move this mandatory 1.5x pay overtime down from 40 hours a week, one hour per year, until we have an "acceptable" decrease in unemployment. While we are at it, start 2x pay at 60 hours a week, and similarly squeeze that down until virtually nobody is working their employees 60 hours a week or more.
There is life outside work, families that are "living the American Dream" with 2.1 kids in a 3 bed 2 bath home in the burbs, in the majority of jobs (>50%) have both parents working... and even if only one is forced into 60 and 70 hour work weeks, that's significant stress on the household, things that need taking care of that aren't, and things that must be taken care of being done inefficiently because they can't afford to jeopardize their crappy employment situation.
If you want to break the welfare state and teaching people that handouts are to be expected, make it easier to get a job, not harder.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Tuesday November 29 2016, @11:06AM
They didn't care for anything they owned, not matter how nice, and expected others (government, local churches, etc) to do it for them.
This is likely an entrenched behaviour that is difficult to erase, but consider where it comes from: growing up not able to afford to own anything of value. I grew up in a fairly comfortable middle-class household with both parents working. This meant that I was conditioned from an early age to believe that things that we owned were the result of hard work and that they were worth looking after because they could only be replaced by more hard work, and replacing something would mean not being able to afford something else. Now consider the two extremes from this:
If you grow up in a household where you've inherited a large amount of wealth, it's difficult to value things because anything that you break can be easily replaced with no perceptible cost. There's no expectation that quality of life is tied to effort.
If you grow up in a household where there are no jobs available for your parents and you're reliant on government handouts, then you're going to be trained that anything that you own is given to you and that you're entitled to it. Other people are responsible for you and there's no point in working because there's no correlation between working and quality of life.
Just giving more stuff to people in this situation won't help get them out of poverty, you need to give them the opportunities to see benefits from the results of their labour. A big part of this is to ensure that the welfare system always rewards work: If you are able to work one hour a week, then you should be better off than someone who doesn't work. Historically, we've been very bad at this, which makes it very difficult to transition from surviving on handouts to actively contributing to society. UBI would help here: everyone gets a basic subsistence level income, irrespective of what they do, but any paid work increases take-home income.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @03:16PM
I'm sorry, what did you expect to "change?" It sound like the change you expect is a change in human nature - that all people everywhere will suddenly become altruistic and charitable. Or that people upon receiving free handouts will put it into its proper perspective and then want to do things for themselves. Which is a noble sentiment and idea, and does in fact occur in some cases. But not nearly all.
It has nothing to do with the fact that the wealth distribution in this country is such that NO human being in this country needs to live below the poverty line. The numbers say this is not the way it has to be. Yet many do live below the poverty line. No human being in this country should have to worry - EVER - about having basic shelter from weather, a bed to sleep in, food to eat, and clothes on backs. Because the resources exist to make sure this never happens. Yet they do.
I very much respect the service you put in for that many years trying to assist others. But yes, if you did it from the motive that people deserve that based on who they are, and not what they are (a human being,) then you set yourself up for disappointment.
When it comes to the most basic elements: Food, shelter, clothing, there is no excuse for not allocating enough resources to make sure nobody goes without these things. In the United States, at this time, when it comes to basic needs, fuck the Pareto Principle.
(Score: 3, Touché) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday November 29 2016, @05:04PM
And I once met this guy who decided that millions of people working more than 40 hours a week don't deserve a living wage because of two asshole, non-working, adults and a 10 year old.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday November 28 2016, @08:34PM
The fair free market minimum wage without massive government intervention in "them programs" is probably about $15/hr
Then why aren't those companies already paying $15 per hour? Why are we to suppose to that they would be paying more, if government weren't involved? And why are we to supposed that the fair free market minimum wage is going to be the same in downtown San Fransisco, California as it is in San Juan, Puerto Rico?
What I find the most bizarre about this is that Walmart, etc are doing exactly what you want. They're giving poor people jobs and educating them about the social safety net. For that, you want to punish them? Here's the solution: don't look at this behavior as if it were a problem and it won't be. The real problem is your perception which is a thing you can fix quite readily.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday November 28 2016, @08:44PM
Then why aren't those companies already paying $15 per hour?
Why would they? The government will take my money at the point of a gun to pay for Walmarts employees, so Walmart can make more money.
There is a lot of skim of course. The savings is not passed along to the customers and the government does not work for free.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday November 28 2016, @09:36PM
The government will take my money at the point of a gun to pay for Walmarts employees, so Walmart can make more money.
Again, why isn't that what you wanted? Would we rather Walmart made more money from employing less poor people?
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday November 29 2016, @12:43PM
Well, yeah, obviously. A business that can't operate outside of a socialist economy is not really worth much.
First of all its unethical to run a business thats theoretically capitalist but actually relies on socialist handouts
Secondly its a race to the bottom. Why shouldn't my employer pay me $1 and just tell me to collect food stamps and welfare. An economic system structured that way isn't worth living in.
Thirdly it doesn't scale. One all employers pay $1 to all employees and nobody pays any income tax there will be no tax dollars to fund the insanity. So they can destroy the currency by printing (electronically) or increase corporate taxes in which case capital will simply offshore and no one will be employed or receive any services again.
A weak fourth argument is just because a scam existed that was formerly profitable, that of being a corporate welfare queen retailer, that doesn't imply "the system" or anyone in it has an implied obligation to perpetuate the scam.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 29 2016, @03:32PM
Why shouldn't my employer pay me $1 and just tell me to collect food stamps and welfare.
Why will you accept that? Race to the bottom doesn't work when there's plenty of employers to choose from. And let's keep in mind that the US had for more than half its life, virtually no employment regulation and yet no race to the bottom happened. Instead, it was seen globally as the best option for getting ahead with tens of millions of people making the difficult journey to the US. Even in the times of sweat shops and child labor, the US had the best paying sweat shops and the best paying jobs for children.
The US's labor force has always been constrained by labor competition from the rest of the world. But it has always been better because the country was freer, more socially mobile, and able to maintain a labor pricing power advantage over its foreign competitors for centuries. Rather than support policies that undermine the US's advantages, maybe we should learn from history and do what works?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @10:11PM
I recently read that Costco pays an average wage of $22.
I Googled that number to try to find that cite again and I got an even better page. [glassdoor.com]
The lowest-paid worker at Costco is paid $11/hr to start, with an average of $12.43/hr for that position.
...yet Costco remains in business and, apparently, competitive with other retailers.
.
In this article, from before when Seattle et al. approved an even better wage, it is noted that A $10.10 Minimum Wage Would Make A [$16] DVD At Walmart Cost One Cent More [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [thinkprogress.org]
(Costco gets a high-five there as well.)
It goes on to say that even the $0.01 increase would be unnecessary if the corporate overlords would stop slimy practices like stock buy-backs.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday November 29 2016, @02:09AM
WalMart giving people sub-subsistence level employment and teaching their employees how to work the "social safety net" is what I find most disgusting about "my tax dollars at work." I don't want, nor need, anything from WalMart at their "deep discount" prices that are only possible with their tax subsidized workforce - they should pay their employees enough to live without simultaneously sponging off of government assistance, raise their prices to cover labor costs (gasp: $3.88 becomes $4.18) and then give their workers another 5% raise to cover their increased cost of living because of this vicious cycle. If this inflation of the bottom end goes far enough, that mom and pop hardware store downtown just might be able to reopen and compete.
Bottom line, I'd rather get a $500 per year break on my taxes and have to pay $750 per year more for my goods and services due to the necessary increased costs of labor, but the truth is, it's the other way around - every dollar you sink into social services gets 50% eaten up by accounting and overhead before it ever has a chance to help out somebody in need. If the plan stayed revenue neutral, you might pay $750 per year more for goods and services due to increased labor costs, but your taxes _should_ go down by $1500 or more, after they get done re-training all the bureaucrats in the social security and selling off the real-estate their offices are in.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 29 2016, @03:23AM
WalMart giving people sub-subsistence level employment and teaching their employees how to work the "social safety net" is what I find most disgusting about "my tax dollars at work."
You can always find a better class of problem to be concerned about. I personally have better things to be concerned about than your tax money paying Walmart to employ poor people.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday November 29 2016, @05:28AM
Like fervently posting about these kind of issues on the internet whenever they come up?
I'm not spending much time worrying about it, but whenever the opportunity comes along to voice an opinion, I care enough about this class of problem to voice my opinion.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 29 2016, @11:55AM
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday November 29 2016, @12:45PM
Why?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 29 2016, @03:23PM
Further, we want poor people employed. Walmart does that. Even if we suppose these social programs act as a subsidy for Walmart, we still have that the subsidy encourages Walmart to do stuff we want them to do.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Monday November 28 2016, @10:49PM
What I don't see is how this legislation is forcing employers to pay a single dime more to employees - what it means is that overtime is going to cost them proportionally more than salary, for employees who make under forty-whatever-thousand a year.
If the extra money hurts the business owner, cut the employee's base pay and let the net takehome be the same. It will mean that the employee is legally entitled to (but not required to give) an accounting of hours worked and compensation of overtime.
It also will mean that hiring 3 salaried employees to work 44 hours a week will now be cheaper than having two work 60. That's the real difference the law makes to the bottom line.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday November 28 2016, @02:30PM
Someone you want to groom for more responsibility, and who is probably proud of it, is suddenly back to punching a time-clock.
Why?
At an hourly programming gig I filled out timesheet once a week, until they went online. Haven't seen an old fashioned timeclock with cards in maybe 30 years. I bet kids these days are more likely to recognize a cassette tape than a timecard.
My dad did contracting using a variety of forms to account for hours.
You'd have to be some kind of idiot, not a superior level manager, to be proud of getting paid less for more work or be proud to work for free. Thats an indication the employee is an idiot who shouldn't be in that position.
Its also worth pointing out that I worked lower level management when I was younger and I did straight 40 hrs/wk. No profit sharing, no stock options, no stock ownership plan, no pension, no 401K, no bonus plan whatsoever, nothing at all in it for me... Sure a veep with all of those rewards has a direct financial result to working harder, but anyone middle management and below is just drinking kool aide if they're working like owners while getting rewarded like front line employees if not worse. Lower level managers are just overseers, not real managers, and no reward means working for free is idiotic.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday November 28 2016, @02:34PM
This reasoning is correct if you are the only business in town. Since you probably aren't, it doesn't actually work that way.
The reason: My labor expenses = income for your customers => higher sales for you. So, for example, if you're running a greasy spoon in a town with a couple of other stores and a Walmart down the road, when Walmart's wages go up, you get more people coming into your greasy spoon more often, which means you can make more sales and possibly raise your prices a bit, and that helps you cover the expenses of higher wages for your cook or waitstaff. And your waitress can now afford to pay the shop just down Main Street to fix her car, which helps them out in paying their mechanic. And the mechanic can now afford to eat at your restaurant, in a virtuous cycle. Also, if your town happens to be near a major travel route, your hypothetical greasy spoon can also benefit from increased numbers of tourists or truckers stopping in for a sandwich and coffee.
In my example, the Walmart down the road is important, because what it means is that more of the revenue from that store stays in the area (in the hands of their employees) rather than trickling up to the Walton family in New York City, where they aren't likely to be patrons of your SME.
What will really make a big difference in your local economy, though, is the price of anything you sell to people outside of town. For example, if you're in an area where, say, cattle ranching is the big industry, the price of beef will have far more effect on your own success than just about anything else.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @08:22PM
Sounds like you're describing the "broken window fallacy."
Liberals don't think, they feel. That's how we get so much irrationality.
The market will pay you what your labor is worth. If you don't like where you're working, you're free to go somewhere else. If no one else will pay you what you're making now, your labor isn't worth what you think it is.
Everyone knows that price fixing doesn't work.
Employers will just adjust such that no overtime is paid. My wife was a victim of this legislation. She's hourly now, but not allowed to have any overtime. Internal customer needs help after hours? tough. Now she has to punch out for everything (Dr's appt, etc.), whereas, when she was salaried, she could come and go as necessary.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Monday November 28 2016, @09:28PM
Do you really mean "price fixing", or do you mean "minumum wage", or do you mean something else?
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday November 29 2016, @02:21AM
I'm sorry, where in this plan do we stop taxing the rich so they can "trickle down" the extra money to the rest of us?
What you propose doesn't sound realistic, it certainly doesn't match anything I've seen implemented in the U.S. economic system in my lifetime. Are you a Communist, or just an idiot? (Language I learned watching our recent Presidential debates.)
So many "red state" voters were brought up with the rhetoric of "I ain't never taken no charity from no one and no child of mine ever will either, or I'll disown them," often spouted from the mouths of parents too proud to admit that they are on long term disability, or other social support programs. They point at welfare babies and greedy "entitled" takers of charity, but they miss the fact that the vast majority of people want to work, want decent paying jobs, and wouldn't be on social support if they had a better alternative.
The current social security program strongly discourages people from working, it is so difficult to get benefits in the first place, and so easy to lose them if you start earning income, that many many people take the defeatist position of just trying to get by on the benefits - it sucks, but it will suck worse to take that job and get laid off after three months and then be without benefits for the next six months while they try to fight to get their benefits back. At some levels, the programs and their income based reductions in benefits make sense, but when you throw the bureaucracy into the mix it's a whole different reality.
It would be fun to roll out UBI and "give social safety net benefits to everyone, whether they're working or not" just to watch the bright red angry faces on television attempt to explain why it will bring the end of days.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @05:18PM
To me it simply comes down to the overtime exemption being an unconstitutional exemption to the equal protection clause. Why should only some people be protected from being overworked and others not?
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Monday November 28 2016, @06:07PM
If you are on salary, you are allowed to take a long lunch on occasion, without penalty.
I think the theory is that they want to reward productivity, rather than just busywork.
Don't really have a clue how it works in the real world though.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday November 28 2016, @08:39PM
Why should only some people be protected from being overworked and others not?
Why is it any government's job to protect you from overwork? Don't they have better things to work on, such as roads, law enforcement, emergency services, etc?
(Score: 4, Touché) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Monday November 28 2016, @08:52PM
Why is it any government's job to protect you from overwork?
Because protecting people is the government's job.
Don't they have better things to work on, such as roads, law enforcement, emergency services, etc?
Not so much "better" as "other". They all need doing.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday November 28 2016, @09:38PM
Because protecting people is the government's job.
Like making poor life choices? Having bad belief systems (like the idea that "protecting" is a government's job)?
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Tuesday November 29 2016, @02:25AM
...the idea that "protecting" is a government's job
Not trolling, asking for information: if the government's job isn't protecting the people it represents, then what is the government's job?
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 29 2016, @02:57AM
if the government's job isn't protecting the people it represents, then what is the government's job?
When you start babbling about "protection" without specifying what sort of protection, then you get all sorts of perverse outcomes. It's like the stories of genies, be careful what you wish for.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @02:57PM
When you start babbling about "protection" without specifying what sort of protection, then you get all sorts of perverse outcomes. It's like the stories of genies, be careful what you wish for.
And you didn't answer the question: What is the government's job?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday November 30 2016, @01:11AM
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday November 29 2016, @02:35AM
We could start with police, move on to the military, and the courts. That's government protecting you from basic violations of law, international threats, and also protecting the operation of businesses under the rule of law. It would seem that the three line up with the other three, but there's actually lots of cross-over between them.
So, before this whole nasty "organized labor" thing, we had apprenticeships in places like tanneries, where an average apprentice had an average life expectancy of 5 years after taking the job. That's one example of "free market labor" without government interventions. I'd like to think that things like child labor laws are progress, even if I did push their limits and get my first paying job just after I turned 15, and my Grandmother forged a birth certificate so she could go to work at a true age of 12.
There are lots of things that I think can be improved in our current labor environment - people habitually working >60 hours a week, tallying >2500 hours per year, because it's more efficient for the business owner to use them this way instead of hiring 3 people instead of 2... that's one that could use some refinement, and, as much as I understand the law, that seems to be what this particular bill is addressing, and addressing effectively. It's not a pay raise, it's not forbidding overtime work, it's simply making it more expensive to work a smaller number of people longer hours as compared to giving more people employment for fewer hours each.
Sorry if it sounds like another rule to you, to me it sounds like a simple adjustment of an existing rule to reflect the realities of inflation over the last 20 years. A proper law would have set limits to track changes in cost of living, but not all lawmakers are that farsighted, and some of them can't comprehend math that complex - certainly not well enough to explain it to their constituency.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 29 2016, @03:21AM
So, before this whole nasty "organized labor" thing, we had apprenticeships in places like tanneries, where an average apprentice had an average life expectancy of 5 years after taking the job.
Do you have evidence for that claim that doesn't come out of a movie?
I'd like to think that things like child labor laws are progress, even if I did push their limits and get my first paying job just after I turned 15, and my Grandmother forged a birth certificate so she could go to work at a true age of 12.
Funny how your family's lives and mine are contrary evidence to that affection of yours.
because it's more efficient for the business owner to use them this way instead of hiring 3 people instead of 2...
Ever wonder why hiring 2 people is so much better than hiring 3 that businesses would do that? There are huge fixed costs to employing a person. And the bureaucracy coming from regulation is a big reason why.
Sorry if it sounds like another rule to you, to me it sounds like a simple adjustment of an existing rule to reflect the realities of inflation over the last 20 years.
Inflation justifies work week reduction? You're doing economics wrong to bring that in at all.
This is cargo cult economics where the trappings of a good economy are mistaken for the real deal. Here's the car example. Note that many rich people have flashy cars. So if we force everyone to have a Lamborghini, then that means that everyone is now rich.
Similarly, we force everyone to work less than 40 hours and require minimum wage to be really high, then the theory is that we'll have the economy to support those constraints. But when in the past, conditions were nice for labor was because labor had great pricing power, not because we forced people to work less. Attempting to create the symptom isn't going to create the economy of the past which generated that symptom.
It's boggling to see a grown person believe that they can in a weakening economy force developed world labor to become less valuable and as a result, somehow employers will employ more such labor. Welcome to continuing shrinkage in the population that is employed combined with desperate people moving to where the jobs are now.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday November 29 2016, @05:41AM
Note that tanners were just a single example of hazardous labor practices before we had labor protection laws - many industries were not good for the people who worked in them:
http://content.ucpress.edu/chapters/11633.ch01.pdf [ucpress.edu]
do your own Google search if you're really interested in what historians guess the net effect of employment on life expectancy was. I'll go with evidence from my own life - when my Grandfather would come home from the chrome plating factory and sweat acid into the furniture strong enough to rot the coverings within a month or two. It didn't kill him right away, but he was the first of my Grandparents to die, by a margin of 10 years - and my other Grandfather died of cancer that started in his toe, likely due to exposure to carcinogens, but he was exposed to so many carcinogens in his working life that it's impossible to say if a single one got him or a combination of them all.
Work week reduction was written into law with this bill many decades ago, inflation has been slowly eroding its effectiveness ever since - I don't consider that erosion progress, or desirable - I support the updating of the limit and would frankly be happy to see this country make more progress in work week reduction, average annual paid vacation, and maybe even maternity leave like most of the rest of the planet. Working a portion of the population hard while making it easier for the rest to slip into poverty does not feel like the way to keep America great in the future.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 29 2016, @11:37AM
Work week reduction was written into law with this bill many decades ago, inflation has been slowly eroding its effectiveness ever since - I don't consider that erosion progress, or desirable - I support the updating of the limit and would frankly be happy to see this country make more progress in work week reduction, average annual paid vacation, and maybe even maternity leave like most of the rest of the planet. Working a portion of the population hard while making it easier for the rest to slip into poverty does not feel like the way to keep America great in the future.
Again inflation has nothing to do with this since it's not an issue of money. It's an erosion of labor power due to competition from developing world labor. Reducing labor hours just makes the competitiveness problem even worse since it increases the cost of developed world labor without making it any better in the process.
The huge thing that gets ignored throughout your posts is that you need the economy and technology to back your desired protections (even when they're actually protections). For example, it wouldn't make sense to implement modern labor protection into medieval Europe because you wouldn't know what protections work or not (Does praying to the Virgin Mary protect you better from cancer than praying to Saint Peregrine Laziosi, the patron saint of cancer sufferers? More study is needed.). And it would put you at a significant economic and military disadvantage to everyone else, which makes you roadkill in European politics.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday November 29 2016, @01:45PM
Are you that afraid that the American economy is so weak that it's in danger of collapse like the Soviet Union in 1990?
Are you really of the opinion that treating our own people well is going to weaken our country relative to others that flog theirs hard in sweatshops?
The Soviets collapsed in 1990 because of a combination of fear in their leadership and excessive authoritanarianism in their labor force. Their form of Communism, twisted as it was, would have survived much longer if they didn't push it to the breaking point trying to match Kissinger and Regan's military threats with convincing counter-threats of their own. They may not have ever become the number one superpower in the world with their systems, but they would still be around today if they had backed off the compete at all costs mentality and focused a bit more on the quality of life of their people.
The Japanese flogged themselves harder than the US ever has, and they have an impressive, though not exactly booming, economy as a result, but I don't envy their culture nor wish to emulate it.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 29 2016, @03:21PM
Are you that afraid that the American economy is so weak that it's in danger of collapse like the Soviet Union in 1990?
Of course.
Are you really of the opinion that treating our own people well is going to weaken our country relative to others that flog theirs hard in sweatshops?
This is a fantasy. You aren't proposing to treat people well. You are proposing to put poor people out of jobs so that Walmart doesn't get an imaginary subsidy. And we all should be concerned about where the US is going to be in the future relative to China, the next superpower.
The Japanese flogged themselves harder than the US ever has, and they have an impressive, though not exactly booming, economy as a result, but I don't envy their culture nor wish to emulate it.
It was booming prior to the 1990-1991 recession. It wasn't their work ethic that failed, but rather many decades of bad economic policy decisions. And they actually work less hours than US workers do.
I'll note several things wrong with your approach. First, it destroys democracy in several ways. It interferes with employment decisions and it gives more power and surveillance information to present and future tyranny. Second, it destroys jobs and economies. Puerto Rico is a mess right now because so much of their economy went away after they implemented the US's nation-wide minimum wage. Areas with low cost of living get burned when policies are implemented as if they were high cost of living areas.
We've already seen a half century of movement of industries to the developing world as well as many service industries. And finally, it harms the people who you claim to help. There's higher unemployment among the groups that are riskiest to employ, such as certain minorities, young adults, and ex-convicts and many of those people simply aren't worth employing under today's regulations.
Punishing Walmart doesn't make anything better. It's time for you to move on to real problems.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday November 30 2016, @01:42PM
You know, it's not about punishing WalMart - WalMart is the easy example, but tons of mom and pop small businesses effectively do the same thing, underpaying employees to the point that they are simultaneously on social support to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. The worst of the offenders are the ones who are currently paying $25K per year to "salaried, exempt" people and leaning on them to work 60 and 70 hours a week, making it difficult - close to impossible, for them to do things like get more education or training to improve their employability, or even just find a less crappy job at their current skill level because they're spending all their waking hours "serving the company."
Some degree of "free market" is good for the jobs-economy, but this is a corner case where it pretty clearly serves no good purpose to allow low pay for mandatory high hours jobs. Maybe Puerto Rico was better off without minimum wage, or maybe it could have been instituted with a slow roll-up instead of slamming it into place from 0 to $8 per hour overnight (or whatever they did.) Maybe this law would be better with more complexity built in, some local cost of living index where the law reads at $25K per year limit for South Dakota and $150K per year for Manhattan.
Quitting work isn't an option for a lot of people, and that's where legal employee protections are a good thing.
Opposing every single employment law on principle isn't protecting the free market, it's Libertardism.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday November 30 2016, @04:01PM
but this is a corner case where it pretty clearly serves no good purpose to allow low pay for mandatory high hours jobs
No, it's not. First, Walmart doesn't do large amounts of overtime. You're introducing a new straw man by conflating with yet more employers doing different sorts of alleged bad behavior.
Second, if people are desperate enough to choose high work, low wage salary jobs, then more such jobs is still better than less. The higher the supply of jobs, even of relatively crappy jobs, the better for everyone.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday November 30 2016, @04:34PM
Second, if people are desperate enough to choose high work, low wage salary jobs, then more such jobs is still better than less. The higher the supply of jobs, even of relatively crappy jobs, the better for everyone.
And that's where you're missing the point - the law under discussion makes long (excessively long, if you do anything besides eat and sleep outside work) work week jobs relatively expensive compared to 40 hours and less per week.
This law is resloping the playing field to make it more attractive to hire more people working 40 hours per week and less, as opposed to fewer people working longer hours. That is a net increase in the supply of jobs, as well as making the jobs that are available relatively less crappy (unless what you want from a job is a place to hide from the rest of your life, in which case, knock yourself out and work for free.)
BTW, if we're talking about punishing WalMart to improve workers' quality of life, we need to get into the issue of massive part-time employment which is a whole different animal.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday November 30 2016, @07:46PM
And that's where you're missing the point - the law under discussion makes long (excessively long, if you do anything besides eat and sleep outside work) work week jobs relatively expensive compared to 40 hours and less per week.
To you. To other people, they might have other priorities like higher pay or opening doors to better paying jobs.
This law is resloping the playing field to make it more attractive to hire more people working 40 hours per week and less, as opposed to fewer people working longer hours.
Unless it "reslopes" the playing field to encourage developing world employment and automation like so many reslopings of the past half century.
BTW, if we're talking about punishing WalMart to improve workers' quality of life, we need to get into the issue of massive part-time employment which is a whole different animal.
Another example of current labor policy going places its proponents didn't imagine. Unintended consequences.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday November 30 2016, @08:46PM
This law is resloping the playing field to make it more attractive to hire more people working 40 hours per week and less, as opposed to fewer people working longer hours.
Unless it "reslopes" the playing field to encourage developing world employment and automation like so many reslopings of the past half century.
Yet again, fear of the outside world taking our sucky jobs away. You've got a president elect who talks big about putting trade barriers back up, the bleeding heart liberals who wrote all the history books I was ever taught from seem to think that going too far in that direction ends up making a country's economy resemble today's Cuba, North Korea, or the U.S. of A. pre World War II.
BTW, if we're talking about punishing WalMart to improve workers' quality of life, we need to get into the issue of massive part-time employment which is a whole different animal.
Another example of current labor policy going places its proponents didn't imagine. Unintended consequences.
So, better to never regulate anything, hmmm?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday November 30 2016, @10:46PM
This law is resloping the playing field to make it more attractive to hire more people working 40 hours per week and less, as opposed to fewer people working longer hours.
Unless it "reslopes" the playing field to encourage developing world employment and automation like so many reslopings of the past half century.
Yet again, fear of the outside world taking our sucky jobs away. You've got a president elect who talks big about putting trade barriers back up, the bleeding heart liberals who wrote all the history books I was ever taught from seem to think that going too far in that direction ends up making a country's economy resemble today's Cuba, North Korea, or the U.S. of A. pre World War II.
Here, I'm more concerned about economic illiterates destroying the US from the inside than I am the outside world. The hubbub in this thread about Walmart and company is a really good example. No one has expressed a reason why Walmart hiring poor people is a bad thing. It's all an assertion that Walmart and should be paying more. Apparently, you know what is right, even though you remain without a clue about what you're speaking of.
And odd how that you compare the US to Cuba and North Korea even though it has never been like those other two countries even at the worst of times. Maybe you should read real history books.
So, better to never regulate anything, hmmm?
False dilemma. There are actual problems such as pollution which we already regulate for. What I find particularly telling about this is that we don't have a problem which requires regulation. Instead, we have problems such as substantial barriers to entry for new businesses which come from too much regulation and other costs imposed on employers.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday November 30 2016, @11:15PM
he hubbub in this thread about Walmart and company is a really good example. No one has expressed a reason why Walmart hiring poor people is a bad thing. It's all an assertion that Walmart and should be paying more. Apparently, you know what is right, even though you remain without a clue about what you're speaking of.
Apparently you're confusing me with the rest of the threads here... WalMart hiring poor people is a great thing, it's absolutely what should happen. The OP is nothing to do with pay raises, and less to do with WalMart, since, as you point out, they hardly hire any poor people at all for >30 hours a week, much less 40. The OP is about requirement of increased compensation for overtime. The great conservative hue and cry is that prices will rise in response, yet, what at all in the law says that net take home pay has to rise? Can't base pay decrease and keep the labor cost revenue neutral? I suppose not below minimum wage, but, here again, OP is about raising an existing salary floor for overtime exempt from mid-20somethingK/yr to 40somethingK/yr, so that pay-band is still a bit above minimum wage.
If you want to go off on the WalMart tangent, we should rather be talking about why they don't even give their minimum wage employees the opportunity to work a full 40 hours a week. I suppose you could say that WalMart is a poster child for why this change in the law is a good thing: more jobs for more people. The problem I have with WalMart as a poster child for employment is because their workforce can't afford food, clothing and shelter in their towns.
And odd how that you compare the US to Cuba and North Korea even though it has never been like those other two countries even at the worst of times. Maybe you should read real history books.
You don't even need history books, visit rural Mississippi, North Dakota, and Arkansas outside of Little Rock. If you do go back in history, you'll come to my Grandparents in eastern Tennessee, whose lives in the 1920s did very much resemble life in rural Cuba today, but a bit colder in the winter.
False dilemma. There are actual problems such as pollution which we already regulate for. What I find particularly telling about this is that we don't have a problem which requires regulation. Instead, we have problems such as substantial barriers to entry for new businesses which come from too much regulation and other costs imposed on employers.
Interesting perspective. Talk with some underemployed families, especially lopsided earning families where the heavy earner has been unemployed a couple of times. I've been fortunate enough that my longest stretch of unemployment in the past 30 years has been 4 months, though to terminate that I was obliged to uproot the family and move 1200 miles - 4 months of job search yielded absolutely nothing within 400 miles of home - the jobs that were available looked at my resume and said "I'd hire you, but within a year or less you'll find something that pays twice as much, be a waste of my time to start you here."
I'm not going to say that the prick who laid off the whole company (30 people) the day before Christmas needs regulation to prevent him from doing that. I am going to say that businesses in the US have a distinct lack of respect for their workers when contrasted with more mature economies such as in Europe. You don't see German businesses pissing their pants afraid that taking a holiday or paying a decent wage is going to cause their economy to collapse.
The interesting thing about your perspective is that I've heard it before, from the mouths of the hardworking poor, people who can barely make ends meet to stay in a mobile home out in the boonies, afraid that if Obama was elected that their boss would get pissed off and fire everyone. I guess as long as business can cow the workers with threats like that and make them stick, we'll have elected representatives who back them up with labor un-friendly legislation.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday November 30 2016, @11:31PM
The OP is about requirement of increased compensation for overtime. The great conservative hue and cry is that prices will rise in response, yet, what at all in the law says that net take home pay has to rise?
Such interference always results in higher costs. But costs don't necessarily translate to higher take home pay.
You don't see German businesses pissing their pants afraid that taking a holiday or paying a decent wage is going to cause their economy to collapse.
You do however see companies in Germany and the rest of Europe optimizing for the fastest way to lay off people under regulatory constraints. For example, Agfa-Gevart N.V., a Belgian multi-national company closed an X ray film plant [blueridgenow.com] in North Carolina using a tactic of incremental layoffs (about half of the employees remaining a year) until the remaining employees fell below a certain threshold and then closing the plant. According to rumors I heard at the time, this was their standard approach for shutting down workplaces in Europe.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday December 01 2016, @02:48AM
You don't see German businesses pissing their pants afraid that taking a holiday or paying a decent wage is going to cause their economy to collapse.
You do however see companies in Germany and the rest of Europe optimizing for the fastest way to lay off people under regulatory constraints. For example, Agfa-Gevart N.V., a Belgian multi-national company closed an X ray film plant in North Carolina using a tactic of incremental layoffs (about half of the employees remaining a year) until the remaining employees fell below a certain threshold and then closing the plant. According to rumors I heard at the time, this was their standard approach for shutting down workplaces in Europe.
Nobody said Europeans are angels, especially when they deal with overseas operations - my favorite example was a French owned chemical plant in Seabrook, Texas - damned place looked like Mordor during the Hurricane Rita evac, billowing black smoke blocking the sun for miles. IBM in the Netherlands just laid off AlienBob, famous package maintainer, if you ever used Slackware.
Business is business all over the world, but comparatively speaking, I'd call German working conditions preferable to the Chinese, and I'd also say that it's not the brutal working conditions in China that are going to make them the next superpower, but instead their massive human resources and the fact that the world is becoming more connected and more service oriented, if their leadership can get out of the way of education, communication and international commerce, the Chinese population numbers are why they will be more influential in the future - same for India, though India seems even more chaotic and inconsistent than China at the moment.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday December 01 2016, @05:09PM
I'd call German working conditions preferable to the Chinese, and I'd also say that it's not the brutal working conditions in China that are going to make them the next superpower, but instead their massive human resources
Will German working conditions be preferable in 50 years? I'll note that China has been greatly improving its working conditions over the past few decades while Germany has been obsessing over climate change, concentrating power in the EU government, and other things hostile to maintaining good working conditions. My view is that working conditions reflect the state of the economy. A poor economy will have bad working conditions no matter how much you try to regulate the work environment.
China is doing what it takes, including said "brutal" working conditions, in order to have that good economy while Germany is not. I think the next few decades will be very instructive as to the relative value of economies to working conditions.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday December 01 2016, @05:28PM
Will German working conditions be preferable in 50 years?
I'm going to start thinking like a Boomer on you here and say: "who cares what happens in 50 years, I'll be dead." Countries rise and fall and economies with them. As long as international borders stay somewhat open, if it gets bad enough where you are you can move to somewhere better.
I will note that Germany has been taking the short work week, long vacation thing seriously for the last 40+ years, and it hasn't had negative impact on them yet. They absorbed the East, basically printed them Trillions in hard currency upon entry, and 25 years later it still seems to be working for them. Peaches, cream and rose blossoms every day in every way? No. Better than here? My friend from college who emigrated there 25 years ago thought it was temporary, just a couple of years for work experience and to get to know his distant family better. When his wife moved there with him a couple of years later, they were coming back before the kids got into school because, well, the people are just weird over there, who wants kids like them? By 2000, they had realized that moving back to the US would be risking economic and quality of life suicide. Trading comfort and security in Germany for similar after tax compensation, a high risk of unemployment, and a sharp drop in social benefits was just too much for them. They stayed, their three kids are German now.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @03:20AM
Because the government will arrest me if I support myself by hunting deer out of season and throwing up a yurt to live in anywhere I want. As soon as government feels it's their job to decide how I cannot meet my basic needs, reasonable people conclude they also have a responsibility to make sure that companies cannot take undue advantage of my limited (by that same government) options to meet my basic needs.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 29 2016, @11:43AM
As soon as government feels it's their job to decide how I cannot meet my basic needs, reasonable people conclude they also have a responsibility to make sure that companies cannot take undue advantage of my limited (by that same government) options to meet my basic needs.
In other words, government screw ups are fixed by making more government screw ups.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @05:57PM
IOW, in your mind everything is filtered through a "government is always bad" filter. Are you really saying we should have complete open season on all fish and game until preyed upon to extinction and no real property laws at all?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday November 30 2016, @01:10AM
IOW, in your mind everything is filtered through a "government is always bad" filter. Are you really saying we should have complete open season on all fish and game until preyed upon to extinction and no real property laws at all?
Government is a big player in making those problems what they are. It's very easy to have the disadvantages associated with government with the disadvantages associated with not having a government. The earlier post I quoted was a classic case where government action was justified by prior government harm.
And that post is a complete miss on my observation that government isn't in the business of protecting anyone from overwork. Notice how many busy-bodies in this thread, with no business deciding how much people work, want to severely curtail how much people can work legally, while ignoring obvious workarounds like working multiple jobs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @07:16PM
What's the constitutional reasoning here? Where does the Constitution give the federal government the power to do this?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Joe Desertrat on Monday November 28 2016, @11:23PM
The good: As always, the (supposed) intentions are pure: Pay people for the hours that they work.
This is the way every one imagines it to be, whether it is the reality or not.
The bad: This law effectively restricts the freedom for people and employers to agree to an employment contract. Specifically, full-time employees earning less thatn $47476 must be paid hourly overtime for any extra hours worked. In the cases I am familiar with, this effectively turns people who are lower-level managers back into hourly employees. Someone you want to groom for more responsibility, and who is probably proud of it, is suddenly back to punching a time-clock.
This is the fantasy we are fed. The reality is that "employment contracts" mean nothing once you are on the job. Hotels for instance, love to pay for lower level managers in departments who get a lot of responsibility and yes, they work hard too! But come a slowdown, and suddenly not only are they doing their manager jobs but the upper level management is insisting that payroll be cut for hourly workers, leaving those lower level managers working the jobs of hourly workers in addition to their own. Figure out their pay per hour and suddenly that proud responsibility does not seem so nice. The hourly workers as a result often depend on food stamps and/or other government assistance, essentially meaning that taxpayers are subsidizing the profits of these businesses.
The ugly: The advocates are simply clueless. "When employers pay a fair wage, they benefit from more productive, loyal, and motivated employees." Guess what, money doesn't magically come out of a spigot. Lots of SMEs in "in the American Heartland" are operating on tight budgets. Higher labor costs mean higher prices, lost jobs, or even a bankrupt business.
The reason the SME's struggle is not because they pay a fair wage. They will get a return on that. They struggle because they are competing against large corporations that can take advantage of such lack of overtime and minimum wage rules on a large scale, allowing them to cut prices below that of the SME's and letting the taxpayers fund the difference in supporting their workers. Eliminate that advantage, and suddenly the SME's have a much more favorable position.